


forecasted; the way we never end

by baekdae



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst I guess, M/M, mentions of past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-21 23:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11955438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baekdae/pseuds/baekdae
Summary: they'll make it there tomorrow.





	forecasted; the way we never end

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miuyi (rainiest)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainiest/gifts).
  * Inspired by [i still see the light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9366536) by [miuyi (rainiest)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainiest/pseuds/miuyi). 



“We are the only variables in a world of constants,” Jongdae reads, snorting. “I feel like it gets worse every time I read it.”

Lunch has always been the same lo mein, at the shitty American-Chinese restaurant that is never on the horizon when Baekhyun looks, but appears unbidden there anyway. The noodles steam, despite the air in the restaurant being just as hot as outside. They burn the roof of Baekhyun’s mouth every time, but the faded-yellow noodles don’t seem to cool down no matter how much he blows. 

There’s always two fortune cookies on the table along with the food, but the fortunes have never changed either.

Baekhyun cracks open his, tossing the wrapper onto the table, where it joins Jongdae’s. “Well, if you’ve got Faux Deep Philosophical cookie, then I have—”

“—Scientifically Incorrect Weather cookie,” Jongdae finishes for him, grinning when Baekhyun nods, pulling out the slip.

He makes a big show of straightening it out, clearing his throat as if he were getting ready to announce a big award instead of a string of nonsensical words that they’ve both memorized.

“Deserts only get rain in the form of thunderstorms,” he reads dramatically, before making a face and dropping the slip on the table. “That doesn’t make sense. At least yours tries to teach you a life lesson.”

Jongdae hums. “Too bad I’m not alive.” 

Baekhyun makes a dismissive noise. "I'm sure you didn't have a life even when you were." He ducks when Jongdae throws the crumpled up plastic wrapper for the fortune cookie at him, laughing at the glare he gets in response. 

They make their way to the car in relative silence, after dumping out their last twenty on the table. Baekhyun looks at the road stretching out ahead of them, and he knows that Jongdae’s looking too. They’ve got a long way to go.

 

 

Truth be told, Baekhyun thinks that hell could be a lot worse. Sure, the sun is fucking annoying, and it's so hot—the air conditioners everywhere blow out nothing but hot air, and on really bad days, actual steam—and there's sand everywhere, but there's no demons sticking a pitchfork up his ass or anything.

Plus, he's not alone. Byun Baekhyun, by nature, is scared of many things. But out of them all, he thinks that driving by himself down this road forever would be the one to actually kill him.

Which is why there's Jongdae, and Baekhyun would be eternally grateful if he weren't so scared of how much of Jongdae already owns his heart.

 

 

"Do you remember anything before you were here?" Jongdae itches at his collarbone, hair blown wild by the whipping wind as Baekhyun speeds down the road. There isn’t anything else around, so given a convertible and an open road, he's going to gun it. Jongdae doesn't mind, either.

“What do you mean?” Baekhyun says.

“I know we’re in hell, but that means we were once not in hell, right? We must have had lives, friends, families.” Jongdae worries his lips, uncharacteristically somber. “I can’t remember much about it.”

Baekhyun tries to think, of a time before Jongdae, before the desert and before the motel, back when he ate more than just lo mein and dry, styrofoam fortune cookies.

Something teases at the edge of his memory. Dark, black clouds, gathering up like billows of smoke, and rain pouring down. Lightning flashing, paired with the low groaning of the sky. Baekhyun’s feet soaked up in an inch of water, sneakers soaked, socks clinging to his skin.

“Thunderstorms,” he says. Jongdae stares at him blankly, and Baekhyun hurries to continue. “I remember a thunderstorm. I must have been caught in one. Was I?”

Jongdae shrugs apologetically, shaking his head. “I don’t know, man.”

There’s a brief moment of silence as Baekhyun closes his eyes, trying to pull himself back into the memory. He wants to feel the water on his skin again, to lift his head and watch the lightning arc across the sky. There’s no obstacles in the next fifty miles, or ever, so Baekhyun’s not afraid to ignore the road.

“All I can think of are flowers,” Jongdae sighs, and Baekhyun opens his eyes. He knows what flowers are, he’s sure he’s seen them many times, but Baekhyun can’t imagine it in his head.

“What about them?” he asks Jongdae.

“Just… fields of flowers. Bouquets. Roses and carnations, tulips and lilies. There’s no memory of me, it’s just flowers and flowers. Springtime. It comes in bits and pieces, like someone’s already gone through and edited my memories for me.” He pauses, surveying the sand around them, the endless landscape of nothing and nothing. “God, I miss it though. When’s the last time we saw a flower?”

Baekhyun smiles sadly. “I’ll buy you some.” 

“What’d we do to end up here?” Jongdae suddenly asks, and Baekhyun startles.

"Where'd that come from?"

“Probably something bad to end up in hell,” Jongdae says pensively, ignoring Baekhyun’s question. His voice is darker than usual, eyes lacking the light that Baekhyun expects. “Maybe I ran over an old woman or something.”

Baekhyun snorts, but underneath he’s a little worried. His own fears somehow sound even worse when they’re coming from Jongdae. “Then I must have run over two, to get stuck with you.” But Jongdae doesn’t respond, still staring at the dashboard.

“I hate this place,” he finally says, angry, and Baekhyun winces because Jongdae doesn’t get angry. “I hate the sun, I hate the sand, I hate this fucking car, I hate the burning hot lo mein, I hate the motel, I hate…” 

“Me?” Baekhyun says, only half-joking. But the answering slap on his shoulder that Jongdae gives him assuages his fears, even if Jongdae nods.

“I just… We’re driving the same roads, eating the same food, getting nowhere everyday. It’s driving me nuts. I’ve been staring out and there’s just… nothing, Baekhyun. Fucking nothing.” Jongdae's voice is tense and terrified. When Baekhyun looks over, Jongdae is staring at him, but he doesn't say anything more.

 

 

In the beginning, Baekhyun had tried counting the days. He'd grabbed a notepad and a pencil from the motel room where they always stayed, and drawn a large tally mark, to mark the end of the first day. Baekhyun doesn't know how long it took for him to realize that no matter what he did, the notepad would be blank when he woke up. 

He never tells Jongdae.

 

 

Right now, it's Jongdae's turn to drive, and he is, one hand on the wheel, the other drumming mindlessly on the dashboard, singing his heart to out a song that Baekhyun doesn’t know.

“You have a nice voice, I bet you were a singer before,” Baekhyun tells him, because really, Jongdae’s voice _is_ nice. It’s powerful and raw, brimming with emotion, but it makes Baekhyun feel safe.

“It’s weird,” Jongdae says. “I know every word to that song, but I can’t remember my mother’s name. Or even if she loved me or not.”

“Well,” Baekhyun says matter-of-factly, “with a voice like that, anyone would love you.” Too late, he realizes what he’s said, and makes the mistake of looking over at Jongdae.

The way Jongdae smiles is _effortless_ , the corners of his lips rising so easily that Baekhyun can’t stop himself from responding in kind. 

On the inside, his heart is stuttering, racing uselessly against his ribcage as he stares at Jongdae. He almost says it then and there, the words nearly falling out of his mouth like drops of water, washing away the ever-present layer of sand temporarily. 

But they have been driving in desert for so long that Baekhyun doesn’t know how to live without drought anymore. He closes his mouth at the last second, and curls his toes to suppress the frustrated feeling that immediately settles in his stomach.

“Why’re you staring at me?” Jongdae asks. “Did I get even more sunburnt?”

Baekhyun is about to shake his head, but then nods just to see Jongdae scowl at him. His cheeks are overly pink, scalded by the constant bearing of the sun, but it’s endearing. Not peeling like Baekhyun’s own are.

“It’s actually not that bad.” Baekhyun is quick to amend, when Jongdae pouts. “We should invest in sunscreen. If we see a corner store, promise me we’ll get some.”

“Damn right.” Jongdae’s smile turns sad and soft, though. “If we ever see one.”

 

 

It’s a particularly bad morning, when Jongdae wakes up and just stares at Baekhyun, both of them standing next to the car that they’re going to be in for the next eight hours, and maybe the rest of eternity.

“I don’t want to go,” Jongdae mutters. “I’m bored, I’m tired. I’m fucking sick of this.”

“What if we crash the car?” Baekhyun suggests. Jongdae looks at him like he’s gone insane. He probably has. “What happens then? It’s not like we can die more.”

“Then we become sunburnt, heavily injured hitchhikers in a barren desert land.” But Jongdae’s interested too, Baekhyun can tell. There’s that telltale stare that Jongdae gets, as he tilts his head and contemplates. “What would we even crash the car on?”

“The motel,” Baekhyun suggests, laughing when Jongdae glares. But his lips are twitching with amusement, giving him away. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

“We’re going to be homeless, sunburnt, heavily injured hitchhikers,” Jongdae snarks. He’s already sitting up straighter, though, hands instinctively bracing on his thighs, as if ready for impact. “But… I’m down for it.”

 

 

There is pain, there is pleasure, there is both, and then there is neither. 

Baekhyun lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His elbow is going the wrong way, he thinks. The wrecked remains of their shitty car smolders in the motel room, brick dust from the ruined wall mixing in with the orange of the rapidly setting sun to create a pretty picture.

Across the room, Jongdae is slumped against a desk, a thin trickle of blood dribbling down the side of his mouth. His shoulder looks odd.

They’d crashed right into the leftmost motel room. Baekhyun had never been here before. Ever since the first day—had there ever been a first day? Baekhyun doesn’t know—the only motel key they’d ever had was the one to room 0509. It’s a little bit disappointing that this room doesn’t look any different than the other one always has, bare-bones and dingy: armchair, bed, desk, and bathroom. Except that there’s a totaled car, and the armchair has been flipped over, wood splinters mixing in with the glass on the floor.. They’re lucky that it hadn’t hit either of them.

“Hey,” Baekhyun coughs, waving his non-broken arm to brush away the dust curling in the air. Sitting up takes a little bit more thought, like he’s re-learning how to use his muscles again. Baekhyun clears his throat, stares at Jongdae. “You good there?”

It takes a second for Jongdae to look up, lips already twitching into that familiar smile.

“Just peachy,” he croaks, wiping at the blood on his face with the back of his hand. He doesn’t get all of it. “We’re not dead, so that’s a small comfort. It doesn’t hurt for you, does it?”

Good question, Baekhyun thinks. He gently moves his broken elbow back into the normal position, bracing himself for the pain—a sharp crack sounds through the room, making Jongdae wince, but Baekhyun himself feels nothing at all. He holds up his arm, faces his palm to the ground and then up to the sky, staring.

“It’s like cracking a knuckle,” Baekhyun says, half in wonder and half in horror. “No pain at all.”

“Well, I hope so. My shoulder’s fucked up, come help me fix it.”

Baekhyun scoots over to Jongdae’s side. Fixing Jongdae’s shoulder takes a matter of seconds, a gentle tug, and then the bone is back in place. Even Jongdae looks surprised at how easy it is. Baekhyun takes his hands off, hesitating, and then leans back in to wipe away the last remnants of blood on Jongdae's chin. “You okay now?”

Jongdae rolls his shoulder and yawns exaggeratedly. “Good as new.”

They stare at the wreckage in the motel after that, two pairs of disbelieving eyes taking in the sheer amount of damage. The car is totaled, bumper crushed unattractively against the remnants of the motel wall, almost folded perfectly in half like a giant chunk of metal origami.

“So what now?” 

“Well, uh,” Baekhyun pauses. He looks out at the darkening sky outside, a unidentifiable feeling settling like cement in his stomach. “I guess we stay here for the night, then.”

“In this room?” Jongdae asks. “We just rammed a huge hole into the wall. There’s dust everywhere.”

“Your point is?”

Jongdae studies him in silence, making unashamed eye contact, and Baekhyun’s mouth goes completely dry. He has always been proud of being able to read Jongdae like an open book, but the look on the other man’s face is foreign.

Finally, Jongdae breaks the spell by laughing and shaking his head, looking away. “You’re fucking insane.”

It’s a simple gesture. Baekhyun exhales heavily. “Plus, I tossed our motel key out the window while you were driving today.”

Jongdae’s jaw drops, but it bleeds back into a smile as he stares at Baekhyun. “You’re fucking insane,” he repeats. “Baekhyun, you’re…”

He trails off, smile fading somewhat as he thinks. “Insane,” Jongdae finishes lamely. He’d been about to say something else, and Baekhyun’s heart leaps. But Baekhyun doesn’t push, because after all the things he’s ever fucked up by talking too much, he thinks that losing Jongdae would hurt the most.

“C’mere,” Baekhyun says instead, holding up a hand. At first, Jongdae pulls a face and leans away— _it’s hot and we’re both sweaty and gross_ —but he eventually gives in, resting his back on Baekhyun’s shoulder casually, head fitting perfectly into the nook of Baekhyun’s neck as he leans back to look up at the sky outside, the missing wall providing the perfect opening to look out at a landscape they’re both sick of. Somehow, the sun has vanished completely in the ten minutes they’d been talking.

“No stars,” Jongdae says simply. “I remember stars.”

“Yeah?”

“They’re like little pinpricks of light,” Jongdae explains, running a hand over Baekhyun’s knee. “Like someone took a needle and—” Jongdae makes a popping noise with his lips, the hand not resting on Baekhyun pinched high in the air, pointer to thumb. “Just like that, in the night sky.”

“Sounds lovely,” Baekhyun muses.

“It was.”

But here, the night sky is a thick layer of black tar, broken only by the weak glow of the moon. There’s a lamp in the motel room, Baekhyun knows, on the desk they’re both leaning against, but he doesn’t move to turn it on. He kind of likes the way the dark fuzzes out Jongdae’s features, and hopes to god that Jongdae can’t see him clearly, either.

“We should stay up the whole night,” Jongdae says. “I’m so afraid—” He pauses, licks his lips, shifting against Baekhyun again. When he turns his head to look away, his hair tickles Baekhyun’s nose. “I’m afraid that when we wake up, tomorrow, everything’s going to be the same.”

“God, I hope not,” Baekhyun muses. “I never want to see that shitty car again.” He chuckles, and Jongdae joins in, the two of them providing the only sounds in the empty desert air. When they sober up again, Jongdae’s face is thoughtful, hopeful.

“I feel like this is a turning point,” he muses. “Or it could be a turning point. We’ve been driving here for so damn long, Baekhyun. So damn long. Isn’t it time for us to get somewhere?”

“Sick of me already?” Baekhyun snarks, but underneath there’s a very real fear that Jongdae won’t need him anymore, not when they’ve gotten to wherever the fuck they need to go. Still, it’s mostly teasing, just another example of Baekhyun’s habit of making jokes out of the things that matter most to him.

But Jongdae’s voice is uncharacteristically soft when he responds. “Never, Baekhyun. Never.”

And all of a sudden, Baekhyun feels his chest constrict. He opens his mouth, the words already on his tongue: _hey, Jongdae, I kind of love you, is that cool?_

In the distance, there’s a rumble of thunder. Maybe there are rain clouds, seconds away from breaking the drought they have been in for as long as Baekhyun can remember. A thunderstorm in the desert. The very sky itself seems to be waiting with bated breath for him. Strangest of all, the oppressive heat that they’ve been battling this whole time has waned into a light, almost chilly wind.

But Jongdae looks up to stare at him at exactly the wrong time and Baekhyun freezes, because Jongdae sees right through him, eyes shining like the stars that they don’t have. Thirteen million conflicting thoughts flood his mind, all wondering what if Jongdae sees how he feels; or worse, if he simply has never looked. And Baekhyun’s constricting heart gets stuck in his throat, all his words lodged firmly behind it. 

He doesn’t say anything. Instead, Baekhyun closes his mouth, Something almost akin to disappointment—almost heartbreak, if Baekhyun really squints—flickers across Jongdae’s face, but then the other man is turning away and the darkness makes it hard for Baekhyun to discern much at all.

They sit in silence, staring at the destroyed car, breathing in smoke that doesn’t burn their lungs the least bit. The thunder is gone, and with it, the last hope for rain. Another gust of wind blows, ruffling Jongdae’s hair, but this time, it is hot and unforgivingly humid.

 

 

When they wake up, the first thing Baekhyun notices is that the motel room wall has been fixed. No dust. They’re lying on the bed. Baekhyun doesn’t ever remember getting on it last night. He doesn’t ever remember sleeping, nor showering, but his shirt is off and his hair is damp.

“Jongdae,” he says, shaking the sleeping man next to him, his own voice trembling. “Jongdae, look.”

Groggily, Jongdae wakes up. It takes him a few moments to come to his senses. 

“No,” he breathes. “What the fuck.”

Baekhyun slips out of bed, grabbing his shirt from the nearby armchair—the one that had been flipped over and wrecked the night before. He crosses the room in three strides, yanking the door open and staring, stunned, at the golden numbers hanging off of the peeling wood. Oh-five-oh-nine, as if nothing had happened at all.

He looks out past the door and their shitty car looks just the same as before they’d crashed it, with the motel key sitting on the hood, gleaming metal under the painfully bright sun. They’re in the middle of the motel complex, and the left-most room looks completely undamaged.

Behind him, Jongdae’s breaths turn shallow and quick, dissolving into panicked little hiccups. Baekhyun turns around just in time to catch him in his arms, just in time to feel the first of Jongdae’s desperate tears hit his shirt.

“We are the only variables in a world of constants,” Baekhyun says, voice thick as Jongdae cries and cries, because only Baekhyun would repeat a fucking fortune cookie slip when the world seems to be crashing down. No, the world is not crashing down, and the problem is just that. The world is not crashing down when it should be. The world is turning exactly the way it did yesterday, and that drives Jongdae crazy.

It takes Baekhyun a moment to realize that Jongdae is not the only one crying. Tears are running thick and hot and fast down Baekhyun’s own cheeks, stinging the sunburnt skin.

In all honesty, Baekhyun can’t figure out what he is crying for. Desperation has a nest built in his chest, but Baekhyun doesn't know what he is desperate for, only that he wants and wants but will never have. 

For four hours a day, Baekhyun drives a car down the road that stretches into the horizon, but he has never known where he’s going. Where they’re going.

Jongdae has been by his side this entire time, but Baekhyun can’t remember if he’d ever known Jongdae at all, in the world where roads came to an end, where the flowers bloomed after summer rains, where the stars shined at night. The world where they could explore the streets for the rest of their lives, without ever seeing the same fortune cookie twice. 

He thinks he hears thunder rumble in this distance, but when he looks up, the sky is so clear that it hurts. "I'm sorry," Baekhyun whimpers, burying his face into Jongdae's hair, ignoring the way sweat makes it stick to his skin. He has no idea why he is apologizing, but it seems like the only right thing to do.

As Baekhyun cries, he wonders if he’d ever met Jongdae before, not in Hell, but _before_. He’d remember if he had, right?

 

 

That night, when they climb into the same bed in room 0509, Jongdae promises softly that they’ll get there by tomorrow. Baekhyun nods, like always, cherishing the bittersweet taste of Jongdae’s blatant lie. He lets Jongdae take the first shower, under the burning water that never cools down. When Jongdae falls asleep, Baekhyun stares up at the motel ceiling and counts the ridges in the uneven paint.

He tells himself that tomorrow is the day he’ll tell Jongdae. Tomorrow, when they get there and nowhere all at once, Baekhyun will let out the thunderstorm brewing in his chest. Maybe the rain will even bring flowers, carnations and roses and all those blooms that Jongdae misses so much, but he doesn’t dare think too far ahead. After all, as Jongdae’s breaths come even and slow, Baekhyun is reminded that it is too late today. And so he promises tomorrow.

He doesn’t ever finish counting the ridges in the motel ceiling. Just like Jongdae, Baekhyun drifts off with a promise for tomorrow lingering on his chapped lips: seventy percent lie, twenty-nine percent desperation, and one percent prayer for rain.

**Author's Note:**

> a few thank-you's are in order, i think! first, to the recipient, for the absolutely stunning original fic. it was so beautiful and subtle and i really really loved it. i definitely didn't do it justice, but i hope you enjoyed anyway! second thank-you goes to the mods for running this exchange and being overall great people. last one goes out to my betas: j for being a sweetheart, and c for forcing me to post this. (i'm kidding ily both)


End file.
